Haffling (The Haffling series)

by Caleb James

  “Think of it as a kind of tile work,” my mother said. “And aren’t we all sick of that broken pottery stuff?” As the words left her mouth, she winced.

  A frog croaked, the hostess’s smile broadened, and the numeral one beneath my mother’s picture shifted to a two. Rule one, I thought, ask no questions.

  “So true,” the hostess said. “Broken china, glass beads, sick of it all. Your pill art, Marilyn, is fabulous and highly personal. It says something about the person and the things they’re putting into their body. Of course, one does need to be careful with that….” The hostess winked at the mirror.

  I felt the lip of the cabinet, wondering how I could get Mom’s phone out of there. I also had this sense of dread. Why had Nimby left me? Considering the effort I spent trying to make her disappear, you’d think this would be great. It wasn’t. It added to the pit in my gut. I remembered her pleas to not go into the mulberry tree. She’d been screaming when I fell through. Her not being here was significant, like another rule I had to understand. Nimby was always there; she was a constant of my life. Yes, I could make her vanish. It didn’t mean she was gone, just that she wasn’t visible for a bit. This was different… and I suspected important. My fingers pried at the edge of the cupboard. The door was sealed, and I couldn’t find a lock or catch.

  The band had started to play again, and Mom’s dance partner swept her up in his arms. The hostess was displaying a beautifully detailed portrait of herself made entirely out of pills. “We’ll be right back.” Her tone dropped, and there was earnestness in her words. “It’s a promise.”

  The ogre relaxed his hold on the mirror as Mom took to the floor with her guy. I let go of the cupboard and ran after her. “Mom!” She didn’t hear me. “Mom!”

  The music swelled as they waltzed across the stage, the floor bathing them in swirling color. “Mom, stop! Please stop!”

  I pivoted at the feel of a hand on my shoulder. “What the?”

  A frog croaked, the number under my picture changed to a two, and I was face to face with the hostess.

  “Marilyn can’t hear you,” she said.

  I struggled to steady my breath. My pulse pounded in my ears. This woman, or whatever she was, stood not two feet from me, her eyes gold as a cat’s, her smile broad and cold and creepy. “Mom has to come home,” I said.

  “Interesting.” The hostess glanced at the mirror.

  I turned to see what she was looking at. Bright lights struck me in the face. I winced, and by slitting my lids could see the wavering surface of the water mirror. “She has to come home,” I repeated. My voice sounded breathless and uncertain, more a question or a plea than a demand. I swallowed. “Mom has to come home, now!” I watched the two of us framed in the mirror, just like TV. Me, tall and thin and freaking out. Her, calm, with a hazy golden light dancing over her dress that was no longer red and white, but a shimmery forest green. She reached a hand in my direction. I recoiled.

  She purred and ran a finger through my hair. I froze as her cool fingers slithered down my face, her touch like the muscular undulations of a boa constrictor. I stared back, trapped in her eyes. There was a hunger in her gaze. “You are a beauty,” she said. It did not feel like a compliment, but an assessment. “I hadn’t realized.” Her head tilted to the side as she studied my face. Her hand dropped, and she stepped back.

  I felt defenseless. Waves of vanilla wafted across the inches between us. She smelled like candy, my stomach growled, and through the terror, other emotions stirred. Hunger… but not like “gee, I’d like to eat something.” More than that, and two words screamed in my head. “I want!”

  I couldn’t move. Her gaze raked up and down my body, like a used car buyer searching for concealed flaws. “The brother,” she commented. “Not what I’d thought… always the sister. It’s good to be a girl.”

  She was talking about Alice. This is bad. So bad.

  Her hand inched up my back. Strong fingers pressed along my spine, vertebrae by vertebrae.

  My knees felt like they could buckle. “Don’t touch me.”

  Her body pressed against mine. She cooed in my ear. “You have little power here. Your thoughts are so confused. I feel your struggle, your fear, your excitement.”

  “What do you want from me? Shit!” And why can’t I move? The latter I managed to keep to myself. But why couldn’t I move? So maybe this really is a dream… but a few seconds ago you could move—not a dream, Alex. So either going nuts or….

  A frog croaked again, and what was clearly some kind of scoreboard dinged, and the number below my image popped to a glowing three.

  “So many questions.” She chuckled. “Fine, fine, fine. I’m happy to answer.” Her words carried on icy breath. Her mouth was an inch from my ear. “Dorothea,” she called out. “Read the boy’s questions.”

  A tiny… woman, I guess, in a dark-brown suit emerged from the shadows. She walked with a labored gait, something wrong with her hips as they shifted up with each step, her torso held forward, her arms bent like mantis pincers. She carried a steno pad in one gloved hand, and the other clasped a pencil. “Of course, your highness.” She adjusted a pair of half-glasses. “Three questions.” One of the birds in the band tweeted. “And they are…. ‘What the hell was that?’ ‘What the…?’ and finally, ‘What do you want from me?’”

  The hostess, having completed her inspection of me, clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “A beauty, yes, but not the brightest bulb in the box. Here goes. For question number one, ‘What the hell was that?’ the answer is the scoreboard—fool.” She shook her head, “Question number two, ‘What the…?’”

  The tiny woman cleared her throat.

  The hostess turned at the noise. “Out with it, Dorothea.”

  “Your highness, the judges and I believe that was not a question, but could be considered an expletive. The final judgment is yours.”

  “Ahh.” She smiled and placed the flat of her hand against my cheek.

  I shivered. “Get off me.”

  “Such lovely skin, yes, fine, question two is not a question… although. No, it’s fine. Onto question three… or in this case, we’ll now call it two. ‘What do you want from me?’ Really, that’s the only one of interest. So many ways to answer, so many levels of want. ‘What do you want from me?’”

  As she repeated my question, I listened for the croak of the frog. There was silence except for the scratching of the little woman’s pencil on paper.

  “First, let me explain the rule. Questions cost. It’s simple. I’ll answer each… for a price. For the first, I’ve given you the answer, and to be fair, you weren’t aware the game was afoot. Admittedly, fair is a mortal delusion and has no bearing in reality, fey or otherwise. As to the second.” She threw back her head and laughed. “I do amuse myself. You still weren’t aware it was a game, but you will pay. Because this is a question of great value. The cost must be commensurate. The price is your name. You will give me your name, and in return I shall answer your third… excuse me, your second question.”

  I stared into her golden eyes. “You know my name.”

  “Of course I do. But you’ve not given it to me.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from asking the obvious—then why do you want me to say it? I needed to watch what left my mouth. And unlike the game show Jeopardy—answers in the form of questions were a bad idea. But that’s what I had, questions blooming on top of other questions. Still, the one on the table, ‘What do you want from me?’ covered a lot of ground. But this was a trap. Nothing here was what it seemed. A glance at her little assistant proved that, as even heavy stockings and thick gloves couldn’t conceal she had the arms and legs of an insect.

  I weighed her words…. “You will give me your name.” There could be multiple meanings, from “Hi, my name is Alex,” to a bride taking a husband’s name. There was a twist here. I thought of Sifu William, who preferred to be attacked rather than be the first on the offensive. I mentally flipped throug
h chapters of one of my favorite books—Lau Tzu’s The Art of War. “The cost is too high,” I answered. “I will not pay.”

  “Clever boy. Not a moron after all.” Her smile never wavered. But there was something in her eyes, a flash of rage.

  I held my breath, wondering if I was about to get stabbed with something.

  “Then yes,” she said. “Keep your name… for now. Still, you want your question answered. Your desire is like the waves on the beach.”

  “I take back my question,” I said, not knowing if that was in the rules or not. “I don’t care.”

  The frogs and birds in the band let loose with a horrible ruckus, like something being attacked.

  Dorothea’s black eyes widened in apprehension.

  The hostess giggled. “Oh dear, that won’t do.”

  I felt her fingers in my scalp; they played like worms. Suddenly, she clamped two fingers together and pulled from behind my left ear.

  I screamed at the sudden sharp pain. I both heard and felt my skin rip.

  She held a tuft of black hair—my hair, I could see the roots, bits of my scalp, and droplets of blood. “You can’t change the rules, and lies, sweet boy, do you no good. Next time you don’t want to pay, it could be a finger or a toe, much as I’d hate to damage such a lovely vessel. Please, don’t make me hurt you. And here, a free gift without purchase, I will never lie to you. But I tire of this game, come….” She held out her other hand.

  Like a switch had been thrown, I could move. I stumbled. She grabbed my elbow and kept me from falling on my face. Her strength was unexpected. Call me sexist, but outside of sparring, I’d never hit a woman. Right then, I wanted to punch her. But then she gazed up. Her beauty was undeniable and hypnotic. I thought, What’s the harm in giving her your name? Sure, it hurt behind my ear, but not bad. She reminded me of Alice and how people would just do things for her.

  The thought of Alice slapped me back to my senses. This woman—or whatever she was—was evil. She’d just murdered without hesitation and would have no remorse over pruning my body parts. I needed to get Mom and get us far away from here.

  “I do so hope we’ll be friends, Alex Nevus.” Her tone was gentle. It pulled at something inside of me.

  I didn’t know what to say, her words carried hidden meanings. She scared the hell out of me. I spoke carefully—no interrogatives, no raising my tone at the end of a sentence. “Friends know what to call one another.” It was a statement of fact.

  “So true.” She smiled over gleaming white teeth. “You may call me May.” Her fingers applied pressure to mine. “I hope you realize that the answer to your question was a doozy.”

  “I can imagine.” Having confirmed that, I’d now broken two of the three rules Nimby had warned me about. I suspected losing some hair and scalp was getting off cheap.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true. But imagination only takes you so far. It’s the flesh that matters.”

  I shuddered, still feeling the way she’d manhandled me. She was talking about my flesh… and the way she’d talked about Mom in that introduction. I felt connections just beyond my reach, and if in fact May did not lie, then…. “The woman who will make the world mine… the fabulously fertile.”

  “Enough!” May shouted. She pulled her hand from mine and clapped three times. “To the dance!”

  Seven

  THE darkened side of the TV studio blazed into daylight. What I’d thought was an auditorium turned out to be a clearing in the forest surrounded by a circle of mossy boulders. I turned in place trying to recognize landmarks. There were none. Is this Fort Tyron? The trees created a dense backdrop. Even May’s kitchen had vanished. But appearing through the trees were dozens of fantastic creatures. Some, like Dorothea, were a mixture of insect and human, others nearly human but with pale-green, blue, or purple skin. Some had feathered wings, some like butterflies, still others with translucent dragonfly wings.

  There was music—a harp and a flute. I searched for its source, the tune almost familiar, like Pachelbel’s “Canon,” the harp laying down the melody and the flute repeating two bars behind.

  “You have no partner,” May said.

  I gasped when I saw her. She’d shed her previous outfit and was now dressed in layers of diaphanous silver. Her feet were encased in crystal slippers, and threads of tiny diamonds glittered in her unbound hair. “You look beautiful,” I said. I felt a trickle of blood from behind my ear. It actually helped. It reminded me that no matter how pretty the wrapping, she was dangerous and evil.

  “True,” she said. “Still, you have no partner.” Her eyes scanned the assembly as more creatures emerged from the woods and formed pairs. “Yes.”

  I followed her gaze. My breath caught. There, through the trees, coming toward us, was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. For a heartbeat I thought of Jerod, and his smile and his brown eyes, but this….

  “Close your mouth, Alex,” May whispered. “He is lovely. I’ll give you his name. Liam.”

  I did not need this. I swallowed as he approached, not wanting to stare but unable to take my eyes off him. His hair so blond it was almost white, it fell loose to his broad shoulders. As tall as me, he moved gracefully through the dancing couples. His white linen shirt was open at the neck, revealing a smooth chest, and then he looked at me. His eyes were a shocking violet beneath silver lashes. This was another trap, and as I stared, I knew it would be an easy one to fall into.

  “Liam,” she said, the syllables of his name like grace notes off her tongue.

  “Hi.” His cheeks dimpled. He reached an upturned hand toward me. “Dance with me.”

  A part of me resisted. But the bigger part…. I took his hand and felt a jolt at the connection. He pulled me close. “Look at me,” he whispered.

  “Not hard to do,” I said. “I’ve never met a boy with purple eyes.”

  “You’re pretty cute yourself.”

  “I don’t know how to dance.”

  His hand snaked around my waist. “It’s easy, and it’s free.”

  My heart pounded. The feel of his body against mine made it hard to think. I glanced down.

  “Don’t look at your feet,” he instructed. “Look at me.”

  I fought back the impulse to say I liked his deerskin boots but imagined they’d be impractical in downtown Manhattan. Which, as we picked up speed and began to spin, I realized was where I needed to be. “Alice,” I whispered.

  “Your sister,” he commented. His voice rumbled through his chest and sent something squishy to my belly.

  I nearly said, How the hell do you know? But didn’t. I stopped dead. This was wrong, horribly wrong. What the hell was I doing dancing with this beautiful boy when I needed to get Mom out of here and get back to Alice?

  Liam seemed perplexed as I pulled back. “Dance with me,” he urged.

  I turned and looked at the couples spinning by. It was like a fog. Liam’s violet eyes, the music, the beautiful dancers. I reached back and touched behind my ear. I rubbed a finger over the exposed nerve endings. The pain and the sticky blood helped me focus. And there, not thirty feet away, held in the tight embrace of her romance-novel partner, was Mom.

  “Alex.” Liam’s hand sought mine out. “Dance with me.”

  I stared at him and his dangerous beauty. Something in his expression—longing, desire, hunger—muddied my thoughts. “I can’t.” I broke away and pushed through the dancers toward Mom. I stumbled, trying to see her through the twirling bodies. “Excuse me… sorry… pardon me.” The faster I moved, the quicker Mom and her partner waltzed away. “Mom!” I shouted. “Wait! Mom!” I screamed over the music.

  A thought popped into my head—try and block things out. Like you do with Nimby…. May’s a fairy, these are… whatever they are, but certainly not human. Right…. I tried to steady my breath. I pictured a red-clay brick and began to construct a mental wall against the music. Brick by brick I pushed it away, and brick by brick I shut down the intoxicating smells that wafte
d from the dancers. Brick by brick my vision narrowed to where all I saw was Mom and her handsome partner. And then brick by brick, I walled him out.

  I thought of something May said: “You have little power here.” Interesting, little was not the same as none. Perhaps walling fairies out was my super power. “Mom!”

  Her red ball gown was gone, replaced by a familiar floral print she’d pulled from a bin at the Goodwill. Her black hair was a tangled mess, a strand caught in her mouth. Her expression was wide-eyed.

  “He’s gone.” She spun in circles, her hands clutched at air. “He’s gone.”

  “Mom, we need to get out of here. You have to come home.”

  “He’s gone,” she wailed, and turned faster.

  “Stop it!” I grabbed her hand.

  “Bring him back!” she demanded and pulled away. Her gaze met mine and then bounced from the ground to the stone circle that still remained. “Bring him back, Alex!”

  “No.” A dull pressure pounded at the base of my skull, as brick by brick I built my wall. “They’re not coming back.” I gripped her hand. The throb in my head grew stronger, like a vise being turned.

  I focused on where we were, deep in the woods. Much as I didn’t want to give up the hope that this was a dream, I knew it wasn’t. And maybe I wasn’t mad either.

  “You can’t make them go,” she said.

  “Apparently I can.” I scanned the trees overhead. To my right I heard traffic… good, healthy New York City traffic. Figuring we were still in Fort Tryon Park, that would have to be the Henry Hudson Parkway. “Alice needs you,” I said. “You can be crazy as bat shit next week, but, Mom, we need you. I’m not kidding. You’ve got to snap out of this.”

  She pulled against my hand. “You don’t need me, Alex. Don’t lie.”

  I was scared and angry, and the pounding in my head was awful; it completely obscured the residual pain from May’s hair grab. I looked at her. “Shit!” She was crying, tears streaked down her cheeks, her nose was running.